"Yeah. So. My options are basically being arrested, being arrested, or having to start over somewhere. Well, I mean, not completely over, but for now my rep is mostly limited to the New York Forums."
"I mean, saying you're seventeen and only putting up with the Wards for a year lessens the time being arrested, if that factors in at all, but - yeah, I see what you mean. Hmmm."
"... When you turn eighteen the probation ends, and you're free to do whatever you want. Wards can go immediately join the Protectorate, and are in fact kind of pressed to do so, but they don't have to."
"I don't think they can question it if you keep your secret identity very secret and make a big deal out of not telling anyone. But I can check, if you like."
"Well. I think there are some ways around this - you can say your civilian identity was marked as legally dead in an Endbringer attack and only your power saved you, you can say you used your powers to illegally immigrate from someplace without a paper trail because where you came from sucked more - do you have parents or other legal guardians?"
"Oh. My condolences. How long ago did it happen? Feel free to not answer if you'd rather not."
"Well if you'd like to talk about it, you have my number." Pause. ".... Though now I'm concerned that if you don't have a legal guardian the PRT would get custody of you, and cause you trouble that way."
"This whole thing is kinda confusing, though, I mean, who cares who my legal guardian is if they don't even know my name?"
"A bit. I don't know the specifics of how it all works, whatever age I am is 'over eighteen' so I haven't had to deal with this system at all."
"Hmm. I wonder if we could fib with my legal documents, anyway. I've been emancipated for, uh, a few years."
"I am not going to use ultimate blackmail on you. Do you want some deep dark secret about me in exchange so you can believe I'm not going to betray or give you bad information or manipulate you?"
"That I'm going to lie to you so that you trust me when you shouldn't, to make you easier to manipulate," she sighs. "I get it. But I'm kind of in a catch twenty-two here. I don't have a way to prove that I won't hurt you except by not hurting you, except you can eternally think, 'She's waiting for the right moment to use the ultimate blackmail.'"
Glam laughs. "And given that you do have ultimate blackmail, it's kind of a moot point. I have to trust you. I'm not about to, I dunno, kill you or something, I'm one of the good guys."